10 Soul Crushing Torchwood Moments That Left Us Traumatised
7. John Frobisher Kills His Family And Himself - Children Of Earth: Day 5
Yet another moment from Children of Earth, unsurprisingly, and far from the last one on this list.
The final episode of this bleak miniseries sees the tragic end of John Frobisher, the human ambassador for the 456. Frobisher is a government middle man, who is doing what he can in service to his country. Despite some of the offers he is forced to put to the 456, he is not a bad man per se, he’s simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is sent in by the government in order to keep their own hands clean.
We see throughout the series that John has a wife and two daughters, of whom he is very fond. He is deeply affected by the moment where the 456 begin to speak through his daughters at the end of the first episode, and does what he can to shield his family from the truth throughout.
When the time comes to hand over the children to the 456, it is decided that the UK government will lie, telling the public that their children are being taken for an inoculation that will prevent them from being possessed by the 456. In order to build public trust in this fake programme, the government decides that a trusted government official must be seen to send their children willingly. The UK Prime Minister (who is possibly the most despicable villain in all of Torchwood) tells John that this heavy responsibility will fall on his shoulders.
Devastated, a broken Frobisher decides to take matters into his own hands and spare his girls a gruesome fate, requisitioning a firearm and heading to his home. The next scene, in which the door closes behind John and we hear three gunshots, followed by a delayed fourth, is absolutely haunting, and made even more emotional by the accompanying monologue by his aide and friend, Bridget.
What makes this whole thing even worse is that it ends up being for nothing, as Jack is able to destroy the 456 before any children are taken (more on that later...). Had Frobisher waited just a few more hours, he and his family would have survived the entire ordeal.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, the moment is retroactively even more crushing, as Frobisher’s actor, Peter Capaldi, would of course go on to play a much beloved incarnation of everyone’s favourite Time Lord a few years later. Watching a Doctor subjected to all this is very upsetting.